Mindblind

Question 1

What is the triad of impairments in Autism Spectrum Disorder (Wing & Gould (1979)?

Answer 1

1. Socialisation
2. Communication
3. Imagination (repetitive behaviour/interests)

Question 2

What is another term for high functioning autism & how is it different from Autism?

Answer 2

Asperger’s Syndrome (AS)-

Autism without language or learning disability.

Question 3

Name two people important in the history of diagnosis of ASD?

Answer 3

Hans Asperger (1944) and Leo Kanner (1943)

Question 4

Name 5 characteristics of ASD identified in the 1940’s?

Answer 4

1. Inability to form the usual biologically provided affective contact with people
2. Poverty of facial expression
3. Stereotypical movements that don’t convey meaning
4. Impulsive and stimulus driven
5. Excellent logical and abstract thought

Question 5

What are Leo Kanner’s cardinal features of Autism?

Answer 5

Autistic aloneness and obsessive insistence on sameness.

Question 6

What are non social features of ASD?

Answer 6

1. Restricted area of interest
2. Desire for sameness and routine
3. Excellent rote memory
4. Savant abilities
5. Islets of ability

Question 7

What is the prevalence of ASD?

Answer 7

up to 1% of children

boys:girls 10:1

Question 8

Name some standard assessments of ASD.

Answer 8

Austism Diagnostis Interview (ADI)-usually done by a parent

Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS)

Question 9

What makes a good theory?

Answer 9

Specificity
Uniqueness
Universality

Question 10

What are the 3 main theories of Autism?

Answer 10

1. Theory of Mind
2. Executive dysfunction
3. Weak central coherence

Question 11

Which unexpected transfer task tests Baron-Cohen’s Theory of Mind theory?

Answer 11

The Sally-Anne Task tests false belief.

Question 12

How many autistic children failed Baron-Cohen’s Sally Anne Task (1985)?

Answer 12

80% even those with a mental age above 4

Question 13

What is a criticism of false belief tasks on children with autism (de Gelder (1987)?

Answer 13

Why test understanding with a make-believe scenario when children with autism are known to be poor at that?

Question 14

Perner et al 1980 did a study into theory of mind without make-believe. Describe it.

Answer 14

Deceptive box-task.
A child would find a pencil in the smarties box and was asked what the next child would think is in the smarties box .
Even those with a mental age above 4 couldn’t solve this task.

Question 15

Describe Mitchell & Isaac 1994: message-desire discrepant task.

Answer 15

Children with Autism and Down’s syndrome watched enactment:

• mum has 2 bags of wool
• puts on in the drawer and other in cupboard
• left the scene, Jane swapped items the other way around
• mum returns and wants bag of wool in drawer
• Which bag does Mum really want?
• ASD children made more errors in interpreting desire. Poor memory explanations were controlled for.

Question 16

Leslie, 1987 stated that there is a link between cognitive impairment and…

Answer 16

lack of pretend play

Question 17

ToM hypothesis has good specificity for triad but is not… because some pass

Answer 17

universal

Question 18

Bowler(1992) People with Asperger’s pass the 2nd order FB task. This is evidence that…

Answer 18

Defecit of ToM is not universal.

Question 19

Baron-Cohen (1989)’s 2nd order FB task showed that children with ASD who passed the 1st order…

Answer 19

failed 2nd order

Question 20

Baron-Cohen (1989) proposed that ToM was a delay rather than a deficit because of which task?

Answer 20

I think that he thinks that she thinks aka 2nd order false belief

Question 21

Deficit of ToM is not unique to ASD. What is one piece of evidence for this?

Answer 21

Minter et al, 1998- Children with visual impairment showed difficulty with FB

Question 22

ToM explain the triad but doesn’t explain mental inflexibility, repetitive behaviour, routines etc. What is this type of theory?

Answer 22

Domain-specific

Question 23

Which theory is domain general rather than domain specific?

Answer 23

Executive control

Question 24

Which theories were proposed to account for social and no social symptoms?

Answer 24

Executive control and Weak central coherence

Question 25

Oznoff et al, 1991 investigated mental inflexibility using which 2 tasks?

Answer 25

Tower of Hanoi & Wisconsin Card sorting task

Question 26

Tower of Hanoi and Wisconsin Card sorting task are more accurate for discriminating between who was and was not autistic compared with…

Answer 26

false belief tasks

Question 27

According to the executive control hypothesis, what is failure on FB tasks due to?

Answer 27

Failure to inhibit pre-ponent responses rather than a lack of insight (Windows task- Russell et al, 1991)

Question 28

Sodian & Frith (1992)- task about deception and sabotage found that…

Answer 28

ASD children had no problem with sabotage but cannot withhold information

Question 29

Define the theory of Weak Central Coherence (Frith, 2003).

Answer 29

Individuals with weak central coherence tend to have a bias towards local processing and do not process information in context thus ignoring the overall meaning.

Question 30

In the DSM-5 the terms autistic disorder, asperger disorder and childhood disintegrative disorder have been replaced by which collective term?

Answer 30

Autism Spectrum Disorder